It was evident the old smuggler was in bad form for story telling, for the poor, homeless old seadog was after walking from his native place, Achill, but yet he pulled himself together and begun his shanachus. "Now," said he, "as the incidents I am about to relate took place in Connemara, a wild region, which few, if any of the present company have ever visited, perhaps a short description of it may not be out of place, and I would have you understand it is only applicable to Connemara as it was in 1798 and in portions of it down to 1870. "Should you take up a good map of Ireland, such as can be seen in National Schools, and look at West Galway, you will see a bay depicted on it named Killkerrin Bay, which runs straight north through the mountains to a place named Inver, where the present Earl Dudley has a sporting lodge on a small island in Inver lake. From there a road also runs straight north to a place named Shindilla, rendered famous by the late Major Lynam as being the spot where the famous Mick McQuaid kept a shop, which is now known as Maam Cross, and here there now stands a railway station on the line which connects Galway with Clifden. From this station a road runs straight north to Maam, then turns down to the left through Maam Valley and Joyce Country to Leenane. When you reach there you may imagine the coastline of the Killary to its mouth; all the vast region of this imaginary line I have drawn as the great barony of Ballinahinch, which is pure and simple the vast territory of Connemara, the home of the exile and the outlaw in the old days. Of course it is not all the wild region which our ancestors called Iarr Connaghta, but it's the impregnable inaccessible citadel of the wilds of Iarr Connaghta. "So when you reached it you were as safe as if you had taken refuge in the moon. There was no road of any kind in this wild, vast region, not even a beaten path. There was no chapel in some of the parishes, no priest's residence, no school of any kind, no post office, no dispensary, no court of justice, no police barrack for there was no police until 1893 - consequently there was no law, and everybody did just as he pleased. The inhabitants were split up into clans or factions, and the strongest ruled the roost. "All this vast region is almost occupied by ranges of high mountains, notably the Banabola range, which is the pride and glory of West Connacht. They start up at the Corrib in the east, and run straight westward towards the Atlantic, a distance of twenty-four miles. As they approach the great ocean they, like trees, begin to dwarf, as if stunted by the incessant storms of the Atlantic, so when they meet the sea they end or terminate in an amphitheatre of small heather-clad, picturesque hills, in the arena of which stands the neat modern town of Clifden. Between these ranges there are vast moors or swamps, lakes and sluggish streams, tall bulrushes, and a high keen-cutting species of swampy sedge, and woe to the stranger who would try to pass over them without a guide. The western coast line from the mouth of the Killery to Slyne Head is thickly inhabited. When you have doubled that dangerous headland the coast line runs straight east to Galway, and is thickly inhabited also, while the vast interior is almost uninhabited, unexplored, unknown, and undeveloped. "How it was that the refugees found it out and penetrated through this horrible labyrinth of nature is surely astonishing indeed. However, be this as it may, they came in hundreds, and were received by the natives with open arms. The next thing they did was to take native wives, for the Connemara maidens of these days were easily wooed and won, and in a generation or so afterwards the result of this intercourse was a race of mortals the most heterogeneous to be met with in Western Europe. This was not a type to be seen amongst the Caucasian race, scarcely, but its prototype could be seen in that strange, wild region, but the great famine and emigration cleared them out." When the old man had finished his description of Connemara it was in 1798, and long afterwards, one of the matrons of Cloonbawn came into the corpse-house to offer up a prayer for the departed. At that time there were many grand old matrons in the little town, but this one far surpassed them in hospitality, for surely, she possessed a great share of what is termed milk of human kindness. She was the noblest Roman of them all. As she arose of her knees she looked around her and saw the old homeless smuggler. "Oh then, George O'Malley," said she, "did you come all the way from Achill to old Grandy O'Donnell's wake?" "Yes, Mrs. McGirr, I did," said he. "Musha, may God reward you," said she. "Come over, George, and have some refreshments." He got up with alacrity, and went with her, for I am quite sure he needed it, and yet, I was sorry he left, for I longed to hear more about the wild region he had been describing. Alas, how short-sighted we poor mortals are and how ignorant of the future, for 'tis little I thought that night that I should dwell and lay my bones in some lonely graveyard in which so many of my countrymen lie sleeping the calm long sleep of, I hope, the just. When the old man left he promised he would return, and I thought there would be silence once more, but in this I was mistaken, for at the wake there were two strange mortals. One of them was the ugliest man I ever saw. He had a cast in both eyes and each eye was much affected by cataract. His cheeks were all puckered, and he had a terribly snubbed nose. He was knock-kneed while his legs slanted out in such a way that his flat feet were at least three feet asunder. His occupation consisted in carrying the vestment box from one station home to another for the priests at station time. When the priests discarded their clothes, they handed them to this man; so he went about the town in a top silk clerical hat, with a very broad leaf, which it was said came from a bishop, for he belonged to a race of Levites, now extinct or almost so; a black clerical coat, vest and trousers, and a huge yellow walking stick. A priest to look at in all, but he lacked the Roman collar. All strangers saluted him at once. To do him justice, this distinction he never sought but as they were so kind he returned it with the grace and dignity of a Cardinal, and if passing them he raised his hand uttering he familiar salutation "God bless you, my child." Such, gentle reader, was Paudeen Rory O'Toole in his day. The other man was of quite a different type, tall and thin with aquiline features. In those days the police could hand their old uniforms to any person who needed them, and had cheek enough to wear them, so this man came in for a large share of them. He always went about town tricked out in a policeman's rig, forage cap and all, and he sported a thin walking stick with a tassel dangling from it. He sang French and Italian songs, moroya, with the skill and pathos of a Caruso, and got many tips from strangers. Such was Gogie Ivers in his day. "The old smuggler will get a good supper and a few bumpers of punch from Mrs. McGirr," said Gogie. "They will be of little use to him," said Paudeen. "Why?" said the other. "Because if you put a tube from here to Loughnamucka, and put the end of it in his mouth, if that lake was a lake of whiskey, he would soak it into him and drain it as dry as the floor of an oven," said Paudeen. "He was never fit to drink with old Paddy Malley of Srah," said Gogie, "for the wife of the man that's over-board here to-night, poor Nancy Mulloy, God be good to her, tried them at it. When the smuggler had twenty two tumblers of punch drank he fell asleep, so Paddy drank twenty-five; then he took out his mare, Maura nee Ortha, out of the stable, and rode her home to Srah, and you would not notice that he had a drop in his stomach." "He was a fool," said O'Toole, "for they say she was hard to be ridden even by a sober man." "Not when you got in the saddle," said Ivers, "anyhow she was the best mare that ever figured west of the Shannon, for she never lost a race." "That was a queer name she had," said Paudeen. "It was a woman's name," said Ivers, "for Maura nee Ortha means Mary Faherty, and I'll tell you how she got it. When Paddy Malley's son came home a priest, from Portugal, he was sent, as a curate to the parish of Ballinakill, in Connemara, and his father gave him the racer. He took lodgings in Tully, at the mouth of the Killery, and in the same village there lived a woman named Maura nee Ortha, otherwise Mary Faherty. One morning in the harvest time her husband went out to his little field reaping corn, so when his wife milked the cow she went out to him and tied the six barths of corn he had cut. 'Festy, agraw,' says she, 'go in to your breakfast, for I am going to the blessed well of Balla, beyant Castlebar, in the blessed county of Mayo, and when I return in the evening, with the help of God, I'll bind all you have cut while I am away.' "Then she took her ball of wool and her knitting pins and hurried off knitting and humming for herself in order to shorten the road, moroya. It was not long before she reached Balla and gave her station. She was home quite early in the evening, and tied the corn her husband had cut while she was away. She milked the poor coween, and she had a fine pair of socks made, so she became famous as a walker. The young priest was very pleasant, so he called the racer after her - there now it is for you," said Ivers. "A man in Caraclagan here had a mare," said O'Toole, "and his mare had a foal on Christmas night. 'Take her down to the turf bank' said he to his son 'and drown the foal in the boghole.' They did as desired, but the mare pulled him out again, and this took place three times, so they let him live. He was a blue colour and not much to look at. When he was three year old there were horse races for a saddle and bridle in Tooreen, for there was no Louisburg in those days. So one of the McDonnells who owned him ran him there. He was in before any of the other horses were half way home, 'Who owns the brunnach?' said old Tom Ruttledge of Ballyhip. 'He belongs to me,' said O'Donnell. So Tom Ruttledge bought him for six pounds. This horse won all the great races of his day in the British Islands. He was taken to France and won all before him there, until he had to be cried down as being enchanted. This is no fiction, but a real traditional fact." Just then the smuggler returned and took his seat. "In the summer of 1810," said he, "I discharged a cargo of wine, rum, brandy, and tobacco in the Killery. It did not take me long to do so, as I had agents on both sides of the bay who took charge of it. Then I began to overhaul and tidy up the Lugger, for it was on her fast sailing and speed, our lives depended. One evening as I leaned on the bulwarks watching the men who were scraping her sides above the waterline, and admiring the western range of the Banabola mountains, whose outlines were so clear against the horizon, for surely they were a wonderful sight decked out in their very best summer holiday vestments, which consisted of purple, green and yellow. Each peak having on its white helmet, which sparkled as the sun shone upon them and they filled my mind with visions of giants who were determined to repel any invasion from the west. I have said the western range, for I need hardly inform the reader that the Twelve Pins are cloven into two ranges by the valley, or rather gorge, of Glaninagh. This gorge begins at Recess, just where now stands the railway station, and it continues on to the Killery, a distance of fifteen miles. "One half of this narrow gorge is occupied by the beautiful Lough Ina, while the other half is one vast moor which slopes gently down to the southern shore of the Killery, and as I looked along this moor I saw a man approaching from the south. He continued on his way, and never halted until he stood on a little bluff which jutted out into the bay, and then he called and asked to be taken over. I did not wish to disturb the men who were working, so I sat into a boat with my face to the bow, for the distance was so short. I did not think it worth while to sit properly on the beam. I paddled gently towards him. As I drew near, he stood some fifty feet above me, with his outline cut clear against the dark blue southern summer sky, and as he leaned, or posed, against a long gun, the stock of which rested on the ground, he was surely a man of the grandest physique I had ever seen, for he seemed to be far over six feet in height, broad-shouldered, narrow hipped, and light limbed. "'Did you call out and asked to be taken across the bay?' said I. 'Yes, if you please, sir,' said he. I wheeled round the boat and he stepped in on the stern sheet and sat down on the locker. He then took off his hat, in order to wipe the perspiration off his brow, and 'twas then I had a real opportunity of looking at him. Surely he was the straightest, the grandest, the most extraordinary man I ever saw. He seemed not to belong to the species I belonged to. He was as strange to me as if he had fallen from the planet Mars. He was dark-haired, and the portion of it which his hat covered lay smooth and shining on his beautifully shaped head, while the portion of it below the hat curled up in huge waves which were astonishing to look at. In fact he wore as much hair as would spoil twenty men, yet somehow it became him, and adorned him far better than the sparkling diadem of an Emperor, for surely nature intended that it should be so. Then his every movement differed from the movements of the race of men I had been accustomed to. "'How far have you come to-day, sir?' said I. 'Just thirty miles,' said he, 'straight south from a wild peninsula called Errisanagle, just opposite the dark blue Isles of Arran, a wild unfrequented swamp which was never intended by nature as a home for man, and yet, said he, it is inhabited by a race of ferocious giants, and in all that journey from there to here I have not met or seen one of my own species, nor have I trod on solid ground, for the region I have passed through is one vast monotonous swampy wilderness, where no sound ever breaks the stillness of this horrid region, save the screams of the startled heron, or the sad tall bulrushes and wild sedges along the lakes.' 'You must be somewhat fatigued - please come on board the Lugger and have some refreshments,' said I. 'Not until I know the man is who invites me,' said he. 'Surely I am not as easily decoyed as that.' 'Well then, if the name of him who invites you will dispel your suspicions, my name is George O'Malley, the last of the smugglers, who is very much at your service,' said I. 'And I am Brian McNamara, the last of the Raparees of the West, for whose head Denis Browne, the tyrant, has offered a bag of British gold,' said he. We embraced each other and went on board the Lugger. 'Now,' said he, 'I shall remain as long as you wish to keep me, for I have no home on this earth, save the great caves of Binlethry, high up in the cliff of the great mountain which looks down on the grand Castle of the Martins, once the stronghold of O'Flaherty of the battleaxes, the terror of the invader.' "We sat over our punch till deep in the night, for I urged him to become a smuggler and join me. 'I would join you at once but there is a certain matter which I fear would prevent me,' said he. 'Mention it,' said I, 'and we may find some way out of it.' 'Oh,' said he, ''tis a private matter which only concerns myself and another, so there is no use in going into detail about it.' "We retired for the night. Next morning a young man came on board, the son of one of my agents. 'Roger, is there anything wrong?' said I. 'Sorra ha'porth, sir,' said he, 'only we have a Station in our house today, so my father sent me to ask you to join the priests at dinner,' and said the fine young fellow, 'I hope Brian here will accompany you.' "When we had partaken of some refreshments we were landed in Derreennasliggan and set about briskly across the great moor which slopes upwards from the Killery to Lough Ina. We soon reached that great circular sheet of water, Lough Fee, which lies midway between the Killery and the gap of Kylemore, and as we trod along its banks the air was redolent of honey from the heath belts on which we trod, mingled with that of the water-lily, the bog-bean, and other aquatic flowers which grew along its margin. Further on we reached the miniature Chapel of Cearagh, the most diminutive Catholic Church in Ireland, which stands on a little hillock in the almost interminable bog. Later we turned to the right and entered the grand pass of Kylemore, and were shaking hands with the hospitable old Roger Coyne of Powlacoppal. I had known the old parish priest already, so he introduced me to his two new Curates. 'This is Father Edward Vaughan, son of Ned Vaughan, the celebrated Westport smuggler,' said he, as he introduced me to a very young fair-haired priest, who seemed much pleased to see me. Of course I knew his father, who grew to be a very wealthy man in Westport, for he was most successful as a smuggler, although he received much annoyance from the Brownes. He was married to a very fine woman named McCaffery, whose brother, Father Tom McCaffery, died Parish Priest of Louisburg in 1847 or 1848. When Ned Vaughan had nine children by this fine woman he left Westport in his Lugger, bound for Flushing - but he never returned, and the people thought he was lost. His wife and her brother, Father Tom, sent the oldest boy to college, who, when ordained, was sent on the mission to Ballinakill. After a year or so he emigrated to America, and the whole family went with him. One day he was in his Confessional in a Church in Portland when an old feeble man entered. When he knelt the priest felt a great shock somehow, so he asked the old man where he was from. 'From Ireland,' said he. 'What part?' said the priest. 'Westport, County Mayo,' said he. 'Have you got a family?' 'Yes, I have a wife and nine children,' he replied. 'Don't mind going to Confession tonight,' said the priest, 'and I will accompany you home in order to make their acquaintance, for I am also a Westport man,' and so he did, and then he found the old man was his emigrated parent, and the same number of males and females he had by his real wife the other woman had the same and the names were the same. So the priest told his mother and she confronted her husband, and the shock was so great that it killed old Ned Vaughan. "Then the priest introduced me to his other new Curate. 'This is Father Edward O'Malley, lately ordained in Lisbon, son of old Pat Malley, of Srah, near Louisburgh,' said he as he introduced me to a very young priest with jet black hair, great brown lustrous eyes, and a long nose, inclined to be snub.This young priest became the darling of the peasantry in consequence of an incident which I shall relate. "When the road between Westport and Clifden was building, there was a gang of men blasting in the then obscure village of Leenane, and in tamping a hole it exploded, driving the man who held the drill high in the air. He came down in a sitting position, and there were no bones broken, nor had he any flesh wounds, but the cap of his skull was blown off from the two ears. He could talk and had his perfect senses about him, and began calling loudly for a priest. There he sat, as it were, on the brow of the terrible precipice which overhangs the dark mysterious valley of death. That valley of silence into which the whole human race since the creation have fallen headlong, and from whence, none have returned to tell of what he saw, what he heard, or what he felt or endured. That terrible cavern which has received and swallowed all the vile secrets of the human race since the creation, but which has not even sent back a whisper. There he sat calling for the priest, but the priest was fourteen miles away behind the great high mountains of Kylemore and Salruck. "'Don't be uneasy,' said the poor wounded man, 'for I shall not die until I am anointed, for the Blessed Virgin Mary is standing here at my right hand. I see her with my eyes. Go for the young priest in Tully who has the oils.' Then a man who was far-famed for his deftness stripped off some of his clothes and his shoes, and he ran by short cuts, best known to himself, through rugged hills, across vast moors and swamps, through tall bulrushes and high keen-cutting wild mountain sedge. He breasted the great mountain and sprang from crag to crag with the sure-footed elastic spring of the wild mountain goat. He arrived in Tully. 'Hurry on Father,' said he, panting, 'for you won't catch him alive.' Then the priest mounted his bright bay mare. 'Now Maura nee Ortha,' said he, 'you won many golden prizes for my old father, for you were never beaten yet in a race; gallop now and win this prize for God.' "So Maura nee Ortha began to gallop; she raced from Tully to Letterfrack, then turned to the left through the wild pass of Kylemore, by the little church of Cearagh, and by the shores of the beautiful Lough Fee. Then she breasted the hill which leads to Glinncroff. She galloped through this evergreen valley, and on to Derrynaclogh, and then swung round the Killery. When she got to Derrybeg the people who were gathered round the wounded peasant sent up a great shout, 'The priest, the priest is coming.' 'Do not deceive me,' said the poor fellow. 'The priest is coming,' they shouted, 'we hear Maura nee Ortha galloping, she is coming with the speed of the March wind,' and sure enough she was coming but she seemed to be a white mare; for she was covered with foam and her rider was white also, for he was covered with her foam. "When he alighted, all bespattered with mud and foam, a great shout vent the air. Then the priest took out his stole and kissed it and placed round his neck that sacred emblem which, when the priest puts it on our ancestors believed he could remove mountains or conquer all the infernal legions; that emblem which has figured so conspicuously in all our ghost stories and our folklore and of which we hear so little nowadays in Catholic Ireland. The priest put on his stole and anointed the wounded man, who with a faltering voice said, 'I leave you all my blessing, and God be with ye all for ever and ever.' He lay back on the heath and expired. 'How long did she take to come, Father?' said one of the bystanders. 'She ran from the mouth of the Killery to Leenane in forty three minutes,' said the priest, a distance of over fourteen miles. This ride spread far and wide through the barony of Ballinahinch, and became part of the folklore of the wild region, for there is nothing in the annals of horse flesh to equal it. "Then I turned to Brian and said if there were any of the Mayo rebels here, please point them out to me. 'Oh, yes I see five of them here,' said he, 'seated together. Do you see that very tall, long visaged man who is terribly pock-marked, that is Father Myles Prendergast, an Augustinian Friar from the old abbey of Murrisk. When the French landed in Killala, Myles and another Friar named Father Michael Gannon fled from the old Abbey and joined them. Father Mick, as he was called by the peasantry, put on the uniform of a French officer. Father Myles, who was careless, did not put on the uniform. "'When the French became prisoners of war in Ballinamock, father Mick passed off as a French officer, and afterwards rose to be a general in Napoleon's grand army, while Father Myles fled to Connemara, where he lives by playing on the bagpipes at all social gatherings. He lived to a great age and was stone blind for many years before his death. The strong built fair-haired man who sits next him is Jimmy McGreal of Ballyhip, near Louisburgh. He led the rebels against the redcoats at the battle of Collicoon, a townland also near Louisburgh. The redcoats capitulated, so the rebels took their guns and shoes, and they returned quite crest-fallen to Westport. Ever since, McGreal must be called Captain McGreal. He supports himself here by training gun dogs for the squireens along the sea-coast. "'The pale-faced man with the waterish eyes and long thin nose is the loquacious, frivolous Alfy Gibbons of Westport, who is a capital poet. He is the poet Laureat of the same squireens, and was killed some years afterwards by one of his patrons in a quarrel over a lady. The young man next him is one of the Jordans of Rosslevin who was intended for the Church, but became a rebel. He is the tutor of the children of the same squireens. He was pardoned some years after this, but was shot by Father Myles Prendergast, who suspected he was going to turn informer. The man who sits next him with the aquiline nose and the great blue scar on his brow, who is blind of an eye, is Jimmy Malley of Bunown, who is always known by the nickname of 'Go-go,' is a born soldier, and the bravest and best man I have met amongst the rebels. "'When the French laid down their arms in Ballinamuck, the British soldiers were let loose on the almost unarmed rebels who were butchered in hundreds. Those who had pikes fought bravely. As I looked round me I saw a dragoon bearing down, sword in hand, on Go-go, who held a pike. He had nowhere to fly, so he knelt on one knee and held his long pike before him. The dragoon missed him, for he didn't wish to come too near the pike, so his horse carried him some distance ere he could recover himself. Then he came thundering on once more. Go-go shortened his pike in order to tempt him, so when he drew near the brave rebel shot out his pike and he buried it in the stomach of the animal. As the horse was falling, taking his rider with him, the blow the trooper had drawn, although spent, struck the rebel on the forehead, gashing him from the eyebrow to the scalp; then, with the spring of a panther, Go-go arose and drove his pike to the handle into the vitals of the Saxon, and he fell back all weltering in his gore. Then I hurried to his assistance and carried him to a little shrubbery hard by. I gathered some moss which I placed on the mound, and tied it tightly with my scarf. There he lay until night set in, and then I carried him towards a light I saw twinkling in the distance. The light shone from a window in a peasant's cabin, who received us and bid us into his barn. Here we remained for eight or nine days until the fever left him. Then we set our faces towards the west, but alas, it was far, far away below the horizon. How I linked and led him on, how I carried him through rugged hills, soft, interminable morasses, fens, and quagmires, and deep sluggish streams, is only known to God and myself, until at the end of three weeks we arrived at the foot of Benlethry, for our home lay two thousand feet above us, the great cave near the summit, but this climb he was unable to achieve without more assistance. Then I left him, and when I reached the cave I found some forty refugees before me. Four of them went down and carried him up the mountain, and in three weeks he was quite convalescent, but he had an eye lost from the inflammation of the wound on his forehead, which could not be skilfully attended to. "'The man who sits next to Malley is old Michael Sweeney, the poet, who composed 'The Wedding of Peggy O'Hara,' also 'The Ghost,' and many other fine Irish songs. Beside Sweeney sits a small man dressed in a body-coat of frieze, a frieze vest, and knee-breeches over his stockings. He wears spatters, which are simply strong stockings, without soles, the old Celtic legging. That is Johnny Gibbons of Westport, the famous outlaw, whose inordinate passion for strong drink brought him afterwards to the gallows.'
They rose in dark and evil days, To right their native land, They kindled here a living blaze, That nothing shall withstand. Alas that might Should conquer right, They rose and passed away, But true men, Like yon men, Are plenty here today.
"Then the tables were set, the viands were laid, and we all took our places. During the repast I kept my eyes on my plate, but when the cloth was removed I looked to see who were my neighbours at the table, and became much interested in two females who sat facing me, for their dress and manner led me to believe they were socially far above the people they sat with. One of them was in the prime of life. She was fair-haired, and it lay flat and thin on her smooth ample brow. Her face was smooth and tinged with olive, and on one of her cheeks there was a mole out of which there grew a bunch of very fair hair. Beside her sat a girl of about twenty or twenty three, who was the strangest girl I have ever seen. Her hair was white, and yet it was not white, it was the colour of a bunch of primroses you would see in May in a shrubbery, or in a little wild dell along the banks of some river. Her face was pale, but not the paleness of delicacy, but that paleness peculiar to blonde women. Her eyes were closed, and the long light auburn lashes lay down on her smooth cheeks. I said to myself, 'I wonder is this extraordinary girl blind.' "My curiosity was soon satisfied, for the old parish priest who sat near me, addressing her, said 'Nula, my two new curates are considered the best singers amongst the priests of the archdiocese; shall I get them to sing for you?' Then she opened her eyes and looked across at us, and as she did so I seemed to shrivel and shrink before her gaze. 'Oh, do Father, if you please,' said she. Then Father Vaughan sang 'The Craugh,' Father Malley, 'The Coolin,' not Moore's one, but the original; old Michael Sweeney sang his own, 'The Wedding of Peggy O'Hara.' "When he had finished he said, 'When a young man I was often at the blessed well of Kilgeever, and I was often told that Brian McNamara and his two sisters were the three best singers in Ireland. I now call on him for a song.' 'Well, sure said he, such as it is you shall have it, and welcome.' So Brian began to sing one of the great and grand old love songs of Connacht. Songs to which I have listened, enraptured, when a boy sings which shall never be sung again by the peasantry of Ireland, for alas, their voices are not Irish, but English. Of course these songs have been gathered and will be sung by people who are too cultured in English. I shall put it in my own way to the touch I may feel like Esau, but the voice of the singer is only the voice of Jacob. So Brian began to sing, and as his grand sonorous voice swelled out and filled the room and was wafted by the summer night air through the narrow valley between the great mountains, there was a rush of people towards the room, and there they stood bewildered and astonished, as if listening to Ossin who had returned from Tír nÓg, and as I looked towards the fair girl there she sat, her great hazel eyes wide open, her face all radiant, and her forehead lit up as if illuminated by some bright flames within her head, and she seemed to be in ecstasy. When he ceased singing down went the eyelids and there she sat, so still like a statue fresh and fair from the chisel of Phidias. Then the priests took their leave, and we also wended our way towards the vessel. When some distance from the station house I asked him if he knew the two females. 'Oh, I know them for many years,' said he. 'Who are they?' I asked. 'The fair one, in the prime of life, with the bunch of hair on her left cheek, is the daughter of a Scottish nobleman who perished on the scaffold on account of taking sides with the worthless pretender. She is the wife of the Prince of Lugatheriv, a glen not far off, and the fair young girl who sat beside her is their only child. When we go on board I will tell you all about them.'" To be continued ...